Linux Format Blog

Many moons ago I blogged about a game idea Graham had called Brain Party. That was some time ago, and since then I ported the code both to Windows Mobile devices and Xbox 360, and managed to sell quite a few copies of it.

But here's what's new: you probably know by now that I'm obsessed with coding, so I took it on myself to port Brain Party from C# to plain old C++, and as of today Brain Party is available for iPhone/iPod Touch users. Now, it's a long way from the old SDL game I made a few years ago - it has 30+ minigames, it's OpenGL-accelerated (shinier graphics - oooh!), and it's actually finished as opposed to kind of hanging around waiting for something to happen - but the core concept is the same: family-friendly brain games that everyone can enjoy.

Got a problem with Linux? Looking for a quick fix? On our sister site TuxRadar we've created a searchable database of over 700 Linux problems and solutions. These have been taken from the Answers section of Linux Format magazine, and stretch back over five years - so some of the information may be a bit dated. Nonetheless, there's lots of valuable information inside, so we hope it comes in useful!

Many thanks to LXF readers Towy and Guy for their help in converting LXF Answers to XML. Oh, and if you're looking for a complete list of the questions (it's a big page!), click here.

I want to run a big feature on Moblin and on netbook software; something that will complement all the hardware hard work that MikeS put in for our cover feature a couple of months ago. But I'm a bit worried: I'm not sure how many of you are interested in such a beast. Are you closet netbook fanboys? Do you want to be closet netbook fanboys? Do you see netbook distros as a great way to breathe new life into ageing computers?

I'm also thinking of running a coding series on Clutter, because it's a lot of fun. The question is, would you prefer we write that tutorial using Clutter's native C, or using Python and the PyClutter binding? Or are we just crazy and should leave Clutter well alone?

In Linux Format issue 124, page 77, I wrote about the Free Software Foundation's Windows 7 Sins page. Specifically, I gave my opinion that the page is too zealous and hyperbolic; that it makes the free software community look like irrational mouth-foaming Microsoft haters. I said that we should focus more on publicising GNU/Linux rather than bashing Microsoft.

A reader emailed me asking for more elaboration on what I dislike about the page - so here are some of the quotes on the page and why I think they don't work.

Fresh from recording another TuxRadar podcast ready for tomorrow (yes, it really does go through extensive sound editing before being released to the world), we had a discussion here at LXF Towers about whether we use up too much space with our dazzling wit.

...and, like usual, rather than do Real Work I'm trying to distract myself with BBC News articles. But this time my plan has backfired, as in one of them I just discovered that I'm the same age as Macaulay Culkin, which is, frankly, terrifying.

After posting that I have no intention of making a special magazine on assembly, someone posted a comment containing some assembly source code, followed by the message "You should see Hello world! printed to the screen. Congratulations! You have just written your first assembly program in Linux and irritated the great Hudzilla at the same time!"

Clearly I had vastly under-estimated the interest in such a magazine; Mike seems certain that it'd sell well enough for Future to be interested in doing it. So, I think it's only right of me to gracefully U Turn and give it a try.

I've spent the last few weeks tracking down writers for all your ideas, and the end result is that around 40 of your suggestions have been matched to writers, given deadlines for future issues of LXF, and are hopefully already under production. At just 116 pages we're far from a big magazine, but I'll try to squeeze in as many of your requests as possible - be patient!

Linux has a reputation as a stable operating system that doesn't often
need rebooting. So we were wondering, how often do you boot your
systems, and why?

We're mainly interested in figures for server systems, not desktops, and
we realise that some intelligent guesswork may be needed to fill in the
answers. Just give a reasonable estimate. If we get a decent response we'll publish the results in Linux Format.